1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to heavy equipment used in construction. More particularly, it relates to large earth moving machinery used in trenching and pipeline construction and the device, as herein disclosed, provides extremely accurate user control over the placement of soil and other material used to cover buried pipelines and to backfill structures during heavy construction.
2. Prior Art
Construction projects involving the removal and replacement of soil have been ongoing for thousands of years. Inevitably, construction projects large and small require the exacting removal and repayment of soil in trenches, behind walls, and over pipelines and cables. Placing sand, stone or gravel in a tight area can be one of the most time-consuming and costly tasks at a construction job site. Material may need placement to exacting specifications especially when covering pipelines and other underground utilities. Additionally, there may be concerns about disturbing the surrounding environment by using heavy machinery to place aggregate materials, should those materials be misplaced by the machine operator. Careful placement of many fill materials is also a must in modern construction since many times pipes, tanks or other under slab materials are damaged using conventional backfilling.
Normally, the gravel, aggregate, soil, or other material to be used for the fill stream arrives and is dumped on the ground and is then loaded into a hopper of the machine which will deposit the fill where it is needed. Depending on the size and access available to the job site, this can take several men and machines many hours to complete. Not only is this an outdated process, but inefficient and costly to project owners and contractors. On large projects such as pipelines, many tons of fill material can be lost in the transferring process, as well as the risk of accidental placement of material improperly or in a fashion that actually damages the pipeline itself.
Consequently, there exists a need for an apparatus which will provide for the easy transport and placement of fill material constantly used in construction projects. Such a device should provide for the easy transportation of the material itself without excessive loss during transport. Additionally, such a device should provide the user an easy manner to place the material according to even the most exacting job specifications. Further, such a device should also allow the user to accurately place fill material while concurrently avoiding damage during the burying of pipelines, cables, and other infrastructure that is commonly buried. Finally, the device should maintain its own center of gravity to prevent tipping.
Applicants"" device is an easily mounted and operated apparatus capable of use as a complete backfilling unit with material reservoir or hopper for storage and transport of fill material, a conveyor, and a fill material flow director. Or, in some instances, components of the device may be manufactured for mounting and use in combination with existing conveyer systems used in the placement of fill material. The device in the current best mode of a complete unit features a hopper for holding fill material such as gravel, sand, soil, or similar conventionally used materials. The hopper is mounted upon a chassis or support structure of a vehicle that is moveable by conventional wheel and axil or tread mounted systems of propulsion. A telescopic conveyer system is also mounted upon the chassis in a position to receive material from the hopper at one end and convey that material to the distal end for placement in trenches, behind wall, over pipelines, and in similar conventional positions in which fill is required.
In the best mode, at the distal end of the telescopic conveyor, a means for direction of the fill stream is provided by a flow director. However, the combination of the hopper which corrects its own center of gravity with the conveyor by itself is a vast improvement over current technology using a backhoe and dump truck full of dirt. In the best mode, the flow director is attached to the distal end of a conveyor means in this case depicted as a telescopic conveyor belt and constantly receives the fill material transported by the conveyor from the hopper of material on the device. As the conveyor is telescoped in or out, the flow director being attached to the distal end of the conveyor belt support structure is positionable by the machine operator to where fill is to be placed. Attached just below the point where the conveyer belt discharges the fill material carried upon the moving belt, this flow director is always positioned to receive the fill material from the hopper and transported by the conveyor.
The flow director features a pair of channeling ramps connected by an axil to a strut which communicates with the distal end of the support structure for the conveyor belt. The strut provides a mount for one end of each channeling ramp. The distal end of each channeling ramp is independently positionable to an infinite number of positions by a means for elevation of the channeling ramps in the form of a hydraulic ram. The hydraulic ram is controllable for elongation by the machine operator from the cab in the conventional fashion of such devices. The operator may elongate the ram to raise the attached channeling ramp to change the position of the distal end of the channeling ramp. By changing the position of one or both distal ends of both channeling ramps, the operator gains extremely precise control of the position in which the fill material is placed. Lowering both will provide a narrow but straight stream of material while raising both to the maximum will bifurcate the fill stream and place half of it on one side and the other half of the stream a distance from the first equal to the distance between the two distal ends of the pair of channeling ramps. Optionally, a swivel can be added to the strut allowing the operator to swivel the channeling ramp off the position parallel to the conveyor belt to allow for angled placement of fill.
Additional utility is provided by a means for altering the center of gravity of the hopper. This solves another vexing problem that exists with large machinery which in itself is heavy and becomes even heavier when carrying fill material. Such machines conventionally are prone to tip over when the machine encounters a grade. The means for altering the center of gravity of the hopper allows the user, or a computer, to adjust the angle of the hopper from a normal position in relation to the frame of the machine to an ever increasing angle, depending on the grade encountered and upon the weight of the fill placed in the hopper. In this case, by using an axil mount at the base of the hopper and a hydraulic ram to tilt the hopper one direction or the other, an infinite number of different positions may be established for the hopper and a resulting number of adjustments of the center of gravity of the assembled machine to traverse the grade encountered.
An object of this invention is providing an easily used and maintained apparatus which provides for extremely accurate placement of fill material on construction sites.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an easily manufactured and operated fill material channeling ramp that may be attached to conventional conveyors when needed as an attachment.
An additional object of this invention is to provide a device allowing for use on steep grades by the adjustment of the center of gravity of the load carried by the device during use.
A further object of this invention is to minimize the waste and misplacement of fill material during backfill and burying of pipelines and underground utilities.
Another object of this invention is to reduce the risk of damage to an infrastructure such as pipelines and other utilities during the burial phase of their construction.
Further objects of the invention will be brought out in the following part of the specification, wherein detailed description is for the purpose of fully disclosing the invention without placing limitations thereon.